Well, the rumors are true.

After the market closed yesterday, InBev announced that it has offered $46.3 billion, or $65 a share, to take over Anheuser-Busch. (BUD closed at $58 yesterday.)

Market Watch: Market cheers InBev’s $46 bln Anheuser-Busch bid

(Google News)

The offers is for cash, and is leveraged with about $40 billion in debt.

August Busch IV has gone on record as saying that such deal “will not happen on my watch”. However a number of shareholders, including some Busch family members apparently, have indicated that they’re interested. InBev stock is up in Europe this morning. All the money people, it seems, like the idea.

Not everybody does, though. Most of the coverage I’ve read mentions that Anheuser-Busch is such an iconographic American company that there will be a lot of resistance to this deal. Especially during this Presidential campaign year.

Huffington Post: Politicians Line Up To Save Anheuser-Busch Shareholders From Profits, InBev

There are already websites—not to mention blog posts—opposing the deal, such as savebudweiser.com. (For blogs, try the Beer Blog Search Engine or Technorati.)

I’m not entirely sure what my opinion is on this. As a red-blooded American, the thought of yet another American icon losing its identity pains me. On the other hand, I have no great love for either megacorporation’s products, so they’re already not getting my money and likely won’t in the future. It’s business, and each corporation is looking out for the interests of its shareholders, which it should. But then, when was the last time a huge merger like this was good for anyone but the shareholders? Job cuts are a given, and probably contraction of some brands. Price increases are almost certainly in the cards (there will be that $40 billion debt to pay off, after all). Worse, there will be even more pressure on smaller producers.

All in all, I don’t like it. But it seems inevitable.

Related posts

• The InBev and Anheuser-Busch saga (0)
• The big get bigger? Anheuser Busch and InBev subject of merger rumor (0)
• More Anheuser-Busch / Inbev merger rumors (0)
• It’s official: Anheuser-Busch InBev (0)
• InBev is a persistent suitor (0)